Algarve Chiffchaff, Common or Iberian (1 Viewer)

[ndsutcliffe]

Taken yesterday at Ria de Alvor. End of March normally a cutoff for Common, so borderline. Photos unfortunately partly (and maybe critically) obscured. Any views as to whether this is Common or Iberian?

 

[Mark Lew1s]

There's a few things on here that point towards common:

The spacing between primaries 4/5 and 3/4 are supposed to be roughly equal in Iberian chiff. They aren't on this bird, although I guess there is some caveat to be made about using this feature from a single photo.

The darker cheeks contrast with the yellow washed throat (ideally should merge nicely into a white throat for Iberian). The paler cheeks of Iberian also seem to reduce the contrast of the eye-ring, and we can see quite a strong eye-ring here.

The supercilium is pretty poorly defined - should be a bit stronger in Iberian.

So, I'd ID this as a common with a little bit of caution, but would wait for other opinions from people who see Iberian more regularly!

 

[ndsutcliffe]

There's a few things on here that point towards common:

The spacing between primaries 4/5 and 3/4 are supposed to be roughly equal in Iberian chiff. They aren't on this bird, although I guess there is some caveat to be made about using this feature from a single photo.

The darker cheeks contrast with the yellow washed throat (ideally should merge nicely into a white throat for Iberian). The paler cheeks of Iberian also seem to reduce the contrast of the eye-ring, and we can see quite a strong eye-ring here.

The supercilium is pretty poorly defined - should be a bit stronger in Iberian.

So, I'd ID this as a common with a little bit of caution, but would wait for other opinions from people who see Iberian more regularly!

Thanks Mark

 

[petectid]

Does the primary projection not rule out common Chiffchaff more in favour of Iberian?